After four years at a pretty highly regarded academic institution, I can confidently say that the most valuable asset I'm walking away with are the friendships I've cultivated over the past four years.

Most seminars are an ongoing investment in which they tend to make the majority of "your money".I feel that you get a lot more valuable information from great inter-active sites like BP.Here you find hundreds of investors who are ready and willing to answer all your questions and help guide you to success.And they will not keep digging deeper and deeper into your pockets.Don't just take my word for it ,test it for your self.Ask any real estate question you can think of on a BP forum and see how many helpful responses you receive.

I'm a little uneasy hearing the same thing over and over from experienced investors that you need to hire everything out, lost opportunity cost, your time is more valuable, yada-yada-yada ;)Yes, when you've grown your business past the infancy stage, hire it out and focus on more valuable tasks then drywalling, absolutely - but not everyone enters REI after spending a decade socking away $$ in a corporate world, and some just enjoy the challenge and want the opportunity to learn the process so they could have a better finger on the pulse later on - and that's the case with meI chose to remodel my primary residence 90% by myself.

It's been really valuable in building our brand in the area.

@Justin Fraser,Your method is the complete opposite of my methods.First, comparables are not very valuable to me.

Check out our Fix & Flip Calculator when you have a sec; you might find it valuable in your rehabbing efforts!

Joshua Dorkin & David Weiss like you guys said, the overall feeling I left with is that the networking opportunity is probably the most valuable part.

I want to make sure I can make the meeting valuable and provide a win-win.Documents to bring: Authorization form to speak with the bank, a contract of some sort... my research on comps to show the seller???

Thank you to all the members who share their experiences and to Joshua for creating such a valuable resource.

Let me preface this by saying I'm not really an investor but find some very valuable info on this site.I purchased a condo in 2009 which last lost some value in the past few years.